Linux creator Linus Torvalds made the decision a year and a half ago on February 5, 2002 to use BitKeeper to manage the distributed development of the Linux kernel source tree. Over the course of the next year, this led to many lengthy flame wars on the lkml [story], though in recent months things have been mostly quiet on this front... until recently, when a couple of threads threatened to return to the fiery depths.

Fortunately, the threads have also led to some interesting comments by Linus. For example, he explains his incentive for improving the Linux kernel:

"I'm ok with other people using NT. When it's better for them, that's their choice. I work hard to make sure that the Linux kernel is technically superior, and if I feel it isn't I want to fix it. Because I do _not_ want people using Linux for religious reasons. I want people to use Linux because it is _better_ for them, [or] because they truly believe that they can make it so (or at least have fun trying)."

No matter which side of the debate you're on, the following emails are usually interesting, often rather humorous, and always brashly to the point. Toward the end of the thread, Linus sarcastically refers to earlier more topical threads, pleading, "Now can we get back to complaining about the scheduler behaviour and xmms? Please?"

From: Linus Torvalds [email blocked]
To: Andrea Arcangeli [email blocked]
Subject: Re: log-buf-len dynamic
Date: Tue, 23 Sep 2003 14:53:32 -0700 (PDT)


On Tue, 23 Sep 2003, Andrea Arcangeli wrote:
> 
> if Marcelo would be using open source code to exports the patchsets in
> his tree, we could fix it to add the email address along the name in the
> checkin logs metadata, to avoid this sort of mistakes.

Andrea - please just shut up. 

Until you can point to anything even _remotely_ as good as BitKeeper,
there's no point in just continually trying to start a flame-war.

I agree that Larry ends up being a jerk about it too, but I can well see 
that he reacts negatively to your totally unproductive comments. 

BK has the email in the meta-data already, and a lot of tools to extract 
all the necessary data from mailboxes etc. 

In other words, your argument is nonexistant, and your whole posting is 
pointless - except as flame-bait. And yes, Larry likely _will_ eat your 
bait, something I've berated him for in private emails several times.

So shut up or put up. Go off and write your own tool. In the meantime, 

stop complaining about people who wrote _their_ tools and selected a 
license that you wouldn't choose.

When you write some code of your own, you get to choose the license. And I 
haven't seen you make CVS usable - I've only seen you bitch, moan, and 
complain..

		Linus



From: Andrea Arcangeli [email blocked]
Subject: Re: log-buf-len dynamic
Date: Wed, 24 Sep 2003 00:15:28 +0200

On Tue, Sep 23, 2003 at 02:53:32PM -0700, Linus Torvalds wrote:
> When you write some code of your own, you get to choose the license. And I 
> haven't seen you make CVS usable - I've only seen you bitch, moan, and 
> complain..

we have cvsps and subversion these days, it's not about cvs only anymore.

if I would know that you will eventually get interested into anything
not bitkeeper I would be glad to hack in this area (I can use some spare
time too) to provide a service to the community. The main reason I will
never use  b*tkeeper is because I want to retain the freedom to do that,
something that you and many others won't be able to do anymore.

But note that cvs+cvsps is already perfectly usable for me, most people
is readonly anyways, and if you would checkin into cvs instead of
b*tkeeper I couldn't notice any difference (except that I could send you
a patch to add the email at the top of the cvs log). So from my part,
using cvsps is just good enough and I've no idea why you call it
"unusable" (just as example see the two patches I extracted in a second,
in the old days I certainly couldn't do that).

There's a chance cvsps is even more friendly than b*tkeeper for my
common usages.

Andrea - If you prefer relying on open source software, check these links:
	    rsync.kernel.org::pub/scm/linux/kernel/bkcvs/linux-2.[45]/
	    http://www.cobite.com/cvsps/
	    svn://svn.kernel.org/linux-2.[46]/trunk



From: Linus Torvalds [email blocked]
Subject: Re: log-buf-len dynamic
Date: Tue, 23 Sep 2003 15:54:22 -0700 (PDT)


On Wed, 24 Sep 2003, Andrea Arcangeli wrote:
> 
> we have cvsps and subversion these days, it's not about cvs only anymore.

Neither of those are anywhere close to bk. 

In particular, they don't support any kind of distributed development.  
They aren't even trying to, I'm sad to say. And to me, distributed
development is the only thing that matters.

And I realise it isn't to you. You don't much care about merging, you only
have your tree you need to worry about. 

And you know what? You shouldn't have to care. I'm not berating you for
using CVS/SVN/whatever. I'm berating you for complaining when _others_
have come to the conclusion that CVS/SVN/whatever really doesn't cut it
for them.

Use CVS and be happy. But don't complain to others that have needs that 
CVS simply can't fill. 

  [ Bad analogy time ]

You're acting like a husband that has a wife that refuses to use make-up,
and thinks that everybody else should have ugly wives too, and calls them 
whores for being prettier.

Actually, in the CVS analogy, I don't think it's that your wife refuses to
use make-up, but that make-up doesn't actually help.

  [ Ok, let's see just _how_ badly I get flamed for that analogy. I
    admit, it really sucks, and is tasteless to boot. My bad. ]

> But note that cvs+cvsps is already perfectly usable for me, most people
> is readonly anyways

Indeed. That's pretty much all non-distributed stuff is useful for, from
where I'm stading.  Small projects with a few developers and a lot of
read-only stuff. And even there the developers will bitch about the
limitations.

Sure, SVN makes branches cheaper, but you still have to work with them
like under CVS, ie merging is a total disaster. And you still can't make 
it your private repository.

But that wasn't really my point. My point is that you're only starting
flame wars, with no actual point to your emails. Please don't.

	"Those that can, do. Those that can't, complain".

You're complaining, right now. Everybody who has ever used BK admits to 
its techical superiority. That's just a fact.

I don't care about source control software, so I'm not likely to start
coding one any time soon (like "ever") - but if I did, I'd be totally
_ashamed_ to push lower-quality stuff on users. I'd make excuses for it,
and I'd 'fess up when they didn't work. And I'd try my best to make it
better. Even if it took me a decade.

In contrast, what you're doing is saying "ignore the good stuff: use this
crap, because I'm buddies with the people developing it. We aren't even
trying to compete on technical terms, but we'll push our version on you
because we've got religion, and this doesn't contain any cow-meat". That's
bad - especially if others DON'T share the religion.

I'm ok with other people using NT. When it's better for them, that's their
choice. I work hard to make sure that the Linux kernel is technically
superior, and if I feel it isn't I want to fix it. Because I do _not_ want
people using Linux for religious reasons. I want people to use Linux
because it is _better_ for them, of because they truly believe that they
can make it so (or at least have fun trying).

Take pride in what you do. But don't make that pride blind you to what is 
good technology, and what isn't. Don't get religion. It's a science.

Oh well. I told you not to start a flamewar, and I told Larry to not raise 
to the bait. Now I'll just take my own advice and stop responding. You too 
please stop baiting,

			Linus



From: Andrea Arcangeli [email blocked]
Subject: Re: log-buf-len dynamic
Date: Wed, 24 Sep 2003 02:36:52 +0200

On Tue, Sep 23, 2003 at 03:54:22PM -0700, Linus Torvalds wrote:
>   [ Bad analogy time ]
> 
> You're acting like a husband that has a wife that refuses to use make-up,
> and thinks that everybody else should have ugly wives too, and calls them 
> whores for being prettier.
> 
> Actually, in the CVS analogy, I don't think it's that your wife refuses to
> use make-up, but that make-up doesn't actually help.
> 
>   [ Ok, let's see just _how_ badly I get flamed for that analogy. I
>     admit, it really sucks, and is tasteless to boot. My bad. ]

amusing ;)

well, following your bad analogy time, with software we can do the
equivalent of changing the dna, that can fix the problem unlike than
markup. So even starting from a very bad dna may not be a disaster as
far as there's a critical mass behind it, able to eventually rewrite it
from scratch. sure if we could choose the dna of a beautiful woman, it
would be easier, but we don't have much choice (cvs/svn).  either that
or we start from scratch.

> because we've got religion, and this doesn't contain any cow-meat".

this is not religion this is primarly a law matter from my point of view.

AFIK it's illegal for me to use bitkeeper, because I'm not giving up the
freedom to fix bugs in cvs or hack subversion, like the one that I'm
going to fix to avoid losing the domain, period.

It's a pleasure for me to be able to very seldom fix an annoying bug
once in a while in some random app, that nobody else cared about or
noticed. It doesn't happen frequently, but it's one of the things I also
like of using open source.

And secondly I prefer "open" to "immediatly better" or even to
"immediatly so much better". Again, not because of religion (at least I
don't feel it that way), but because of a better long term business
investment. What you call religion I call long term investment.  yeah,
it maybe too long term, but I won't take the risk of trading it with the
freedom of innovating in this area (even if I may never will).

You're right I should provide new code, and avoid comments on the a bit
inferior info in bkcvs (that Larry nicely offered to even improve after
cvs gets properly fixed), but I had no real interest in this area todate
and my job keeps most of my time full already and that's higher
priority. So I'm trying to at least raise the issue to see if somebody
else shares my view, and maybe in more people it'll be easier to write
code. I'm not complaining anything to Larry, quite the opposite, he was
very annoyed by my signature, but I respect Larry and the signature has
really nothing directly against him or bitkeeper. I'm advertizing the
open links, that were not posted into any webpage or anywhere else, and
I tought they deserved to be better known.

As for the merging with mainline, these patches were merged from 2.4.22
to 2.4.23pre5 (not all of them have been developed from me):

Only in 2.4.22aa1: 00_config-smp-1
Only in 2.4.22aa1: 00_copy-namespace-1
Only in 2.4.22aa1: 00_panic-console-switch-1
Only in 2.4.22aa1: 00_pgt-cache-leak-2
Only in 2.4.22aa1: 00_read_full_page-get_block-err-2
Only in 2.4.22aa1: 00_sk98lin_2.4.22-20030902-1.gz
Only in 2.4.22aa1: 05_vm_03_vm_tunables-4
Only in 2.4.22aa1: 05_vm_05_zone_accounting-2
Only in 2.4.22aa1: 05_vm_06_swap_out-3
Only in 2.4.22aa1: 05_vm_07_local_pages-4
Only in 2.4.22aa1: 05_vm_09_misc_junk-3
Only in 2.4.22aa1: 05_vm_16_active_free_zone_bhs-1
Only in 2.4.22aa1: 05_vm_17_rest-10
Only in 2.4.22aa1: 70_xfs-sysctl-3
Only in 2.4.22aa1: 9999900_request-firmware-1

I know this time more patches have been merged than in the previous
kernels (in this case some of the vm enhacements), but almost the same
number gets regularly merged into mainline in the other releases too.

You're wrong saying that all I care is my tree, I'm deeply careful in
keeping those patches in a way that can be merged with the minor
possible pain from the kernel maintainer, infact I hope Marcelo also was
confortable with that. My object is to get everything merged into
mainline. Personally I wish my tree would be empty.

Andrea - If you prefer relying on open source software, check these links:
	    rsync.kernel.org::pub/scm/linux/kernel/bkcvs/linux-2.[45]/
	    http://www.cobite.com/cvsps/
	    svn://svn.kernel.org/linux-2.[46]/trunk



From: Larry McVoy [email blocked]
Subject: Re: log-buf-len dynamic
Date: Tue, 23 Sep 2003 18:19:51 -0700

On Wed, Sep 24, 2003 at 02:36:52AM +0200, Andrea Arcangeli wrote:
> You're right I should provide new code, and avoid comments on the a bit
> inferior info in bkcvs (that Larry nicely offered to even improve after
> cvs gets properly fixed), but I had no real interest in this area todate
> and my job keeps most of my time full already and that's higher
> priority.

The problem I have is as follows:

a) I understand your point of view and from the very first version of BK 
   we released we addressed it.  100% of the data and the metadata is 
   available from the command line with BK.  Always has been and always 
   will be, if that's not true that is is a bug and we'll fix it.  People
   use BK because they like it, not because we locked them in.

b) I understand your need to not be dependent on BitMover or BitKeeper. 
   That's why we built the CVS gateway, so you wouldn't need to depend
   on us, the data you care about is available in a form that doesn't
   require any license agreements.

What the above two points demonstrate, dramatically so, is that we
understand your concerns and agree with them.  We have spent a lot of
time and money to make sure that you are happy.  Not whining, not 
flaming, we were writing code to make you happy.  We were writing that
code long before you ever heard of BitKeeper and we have the revision
history to prove it.

What we expected in return was the same understanding.

What we got was you complaining about us, in public, over and over.

Andrea, you need to grow up and learn that biting the hand that is held
out to you and is helping you, that's not smart.  What you have done
is to make all the people who tried so hard to help you dislike you.
That is your problem.  You need to grow up.  The world is based on
relationships, people helping each other.  That means you help those
who help you, or at least don't piss all over those who help you.
-- 
---
Larry McVoy              lm at bitmover.com          http://www.bitmover.com/lm



From: Andrea Arcangeli [email blocked]
Subject: Re: log-buf-len dynamic
Date: Wed, 24 Sep 2003 04:04:09 +0200

On Tue, Sep 23, 2003 at 06:19:51PM -0700, Larry McVoy wrote:
> On Wed, Sep 24, 2003 at 02:36:52AM +0200, Andrea Arcangeli wrote:
> > You're right I should provide new code, and avoid comments on the a bit
> > inferior info in bkcvs (that Larry nicely offered to even improve after
> > cvs gets properly fixed), but I had no real interest in this area todate
> > and my job keeps most of my time full already and that's higher
> > priority.
> 
> The problem I have is as follows:
> 
> a) I understand your point of view and from the very first version of BK 
>    we released we addressed it.  100% of the data and the metadata is 
>    available from the command line with BK.  Always has been and always 
>    will be, if that's not true that is is a bug and we'll fix it.  People
>    use BK because they like it, not because we locked them in.
> 
> b) I understand your need to not be dependent on BitMover or BitKeeper. 
>    That's why we built the CVS gateway, so you wouldn't need to depend
>    on us, the data you care about is available in a form that doesn't
>    require any license agreements.
> 
> What the above two points demonstrate, dramatically so, is that we
> understand your concerns and agree with them.  We have spent a lot of
> time and money to make sure that you are happy.  Not whining, not 
> flaming, we were writing code to make you happy.  We were writing that
> code long before you ever heard of BitKeeper and we have the revision
> history to prove it.

I defininitely agree with that and I appreciate that you acknowledge my
requests when the bkcvs didn't exist.

(I was also using cvs for kernel development way before I ever heard of
bitkeeper too, then I had to giveup because it was too slow to handle
branches)

> What we expected in return was the same understanding.

that is not accurate, you also asked us to giveup the freedom of
development in your area. And I wouldn't be too interested in a closed
software anyways but at least I could consider using it in the meantime
without feeling tainted.

NOTE: I'm not asking you to remove that clause, nor I'm complaining
about it, I would feel bad for you if you had problems because you
removed that clause. I perfectly understand why you put that clause in
and it makes sense to me.

> Andrea, you need to grow up and learn that biting the hand that is held

It's because I grow up that I can actually better understand the deals
it's in my own (again speaking only for myself and not for anybody else)
interest to avoid.

(changing email address as well to make it clear I'm speaking only for
myself here)

Last but not the least, if I was required to use bitkeeper as part of my
job, then I would use it and I'd giveup that bit of freedom, but as far
as I'm free to choose, I will avoid it. But that's my own choice, it has
nothing to do with anybody else.

Andrea - If you prefer relying on open source software, check these links:
	    rsync.kernel.org::pub/scm/linux/kernel/bkcvs/linux-2.[45]/
	    http://www.cobite.com/cvsps/
	    svn://svn.kernel.org/linux-2.[46]/trunk



From: Linus Torvalds [email blocked]
Subject: Re: log-buf-len dynamic
Date: Tue, 23 Sep 2003 19:36:39 -0700 (PDT)

On Wed, 24 Sep 2003 andrea wrote:
> 
> It's because I grow up that I can actually better understand the deals
> it's in my own (again speaking only for myself and not for anybody else)
> interest to avoid.

You've claimed this now twice. 

However, that only explains why you don't use BitKeeper. And everybody
accepts that. When I started to use BK, I made it _very_ clear that
service for non-BK users will be _at_least_ as good as it ever was before
I started using BK.

And I think everybody agrees that is true. ChangeLogs, CVS exports, daily 
snapshots. And that's just the advantages to _others_. 

But your lack of interest in BK does _not_ explain why you whine about it,
and try to goad Larry, and just generally are nasty about it. 

You remind me of how some of the BSD people complaining about me using the
GPL. They whined and whined about how the GPL is not as free as the BSD
license. 

In other words:

 - you don't have to agree with another persons choice of license, and 
   you don't have to to use the software using it. That is _your_ choice.

 - But you also don't have the moral right to whine about another persons
   choice of license (or choice of using software under that license). 
   That was _their_ choice.

See? You're not just being impolite; your complaints are actually morally 
offensive. The same way I found it morally offensive when people 
complained about my choice of GPL. They didn't have the right. And _you_ 
don't have the right.

It's the old 

	"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your 
	 right to say it"

approach: even if you disapprove of Larry's license, you should defend his 
_right_ to that license. Instead of whining about it.

			Linus
			


From: Andrea Arcangeli
Subject: Re: log-buf-len dynamic
Date: Wed, 24 Sep 2003 04:48:31 +0200

On Tue, Sep 23, 2003 at 07:36:39PM -0700, Linus Torvalds wrote:
> 
> On Wed, 24 Sep 2003 andrea wrote:
> > 
> > It's because I grow up that I can actually better understand the deals
> > it's in my own (again speaking only for myself and not for anybody else)
> > interest to avoid.
> 
> You've claimed this now twice. 
> 
> However, that only explains why you don't use BitKeeper. And everybody
> accepts that. When I started to use BK, I made it _very_ clear that
> service for non-BK users will be _at_least_ as good as it ever was before
> I started using BK.
> 
> And I think everybody agrees that is true. ChangeLogs, CVS exports, daily 
> snapshots. And that's just the advantages to _others_. 
> 
> But your lack of interest in BK does _not_ explain why you whine about it,
> and try to goad Larry, and just generally are nasty about it. 

I wasn't whining about BK at all, nor about the licence, I just
advertized the open links in my signature, the word "refuse" may be not
a nice one, I didn't feel to be rude when I wrote it, now I changed it
and I hope it's a more friendly wording, though the meaning it's the
same.

> approach: even if you disapprove of Larry's license, you should defend his 
> _right_ to that license. Instead of whining about it.

I defend his right to the licence, it makes perfect business sense, if
he wanted to be safer he had to take a couple of patents too I guess
(but I'm not a lawyer and I certainly prefer the licence to the
patents). I don't think I ever complained to the licence.  I only said
I'm not applying to the licence and _you_ have to respect my _right_ not
to use the software and to advertize the _open_ links, without seeing it
as an offensive thing.

Andrea - If you prefer relying on open source software, check these links:
	    rsync.kernel.org::pub/scm/linux/kernel/bkcvs/linux-2.[45]/
	    http://www.cobite.com/cvsps/
	    svn://svn.kernel.org/linux-2.[46]/trunk



From: Linus Torvalds [email blocked]
Subject: Re: log-buf-len dynamic
Date: Tue, 23 Sep 2003 20:06:51 -0700 (PDT)

On Wed, 24 Sep 2003, Andrea Arcangeli wrote:
> 
> I wasn't whining about BK at all, nor about the licence, I just
> advertized the open links in my signature, the word "refuse" may be not
> a nice one, I didn't feel to be rude when I wrote it, now I changed it
> and I hope it's a more friendly wording, though the meaning it's the
> same.

Andrea, be honest.

This latest thing didn't start with just the signature. In fact, the 
signature flame-war I berated Larry for - ask Larry. I told him he 
shouldn't let himself be goaded.

This one started with you very much making the whole point of your whole
post be a complaint about the license:

  "if Marcelo would be using open source code to exports the patchsets in
   his tree, we could fix it to add the email address along the name in the
   checkin logs metadata, to avoid this sort of mistakes."

That quote is not just some small snippet: it is the _entirety_ of new 
material in the whole post. 

You are whining. You did nothing _but_ whine in the post. About other 
peoples choice of license usage.

>  I only said I'm not applying to the licence and _you_ have to respect
> my _right_ not to use the software and to advertize the _open_ links,
> without seeing it as an offensive thing.

 (a) It wasn't all you said
 (b) I can, and do, get offended by postings to public non-religious lists
     that have no redeeming value except to push your religious views.

I despise people who come up to me in the street (or even worse - ring the
doorbell on my house) to tell me about Jesus, and how they found happiness
in him.

Good for you and your buddy Jesus/buddha/Moses/AlienFromAnotherPlanet. But
get the _hell_ out of my face. If I come to your church to listen to your
sermons, that's when I'll respect your right to tell me.  But if you stand
up with a megaphone in the park when I'm having a picknick, I'd much
rather kick your sorry ass the h*ll out of there.

So go to gnu.misc.discuss if you want to discuss the immorality of 
licenses. There you'll find people who care. linux-kernel is about 
technical discussions about the kernel, and yes IT IS OFFENSIVE to push 
religion here.

It's also offensive to have comments about abortion or guns in your 
signature. For exactly the same reason (and btw, I complained to esr when 
he had his gun-control signature, so I'm not just making these up).

Do you see?

Now can we get back to complaining about the scheduler behaviour and xmms?

Please?

			Linus



From: Andrea Arcangeli [email blocked]
Subject: Re: log-buf-len dynamic
Date: Wed, 24 Sep 2003 05:28:37 +0200

On Tue, Sep 23, 2003 at 08:06:51PM -0700, Linus Torvalds wrote:
> 
> On Wed, 24 Sep 2003, Andrea Arcangeli wrote:
> > 
> > I wasn't whining about BK at all, nor about the licence, I just
> > advertized the open links in my signature, the word "refuse" may be not
> > a nice one, I didn't feel to be rude when I wrote it, now I changed it
> > and I hope it's a more friendly wording, though the meaning it's the
> > same.
> 
> Andrea, be honest.
> 
> This latest thing didn't start with just the signature. In fact, the 

the latest not, but that was the latest, and I still recommend Marcelo
to stop using bitkeeper and to do the checkins directly in cvs. That
would be a start and it would motivate me more too into adding more
effort there.

I need a bit of feedback from a kernel maintainer that there will be a
slight chance to use something non bitkeeper in the future before I
invest a bit of (probably my spare) time into this.

>   "if Marcelo would be using open source code to exports the patchsets in
>    his tree, we could fix it to add the email address along the name in the
>    checkin logs metadata, to avoid this sort of mistakes."
> 
> That quote is not just some small snippet: it is the _entirety_ of new 
> material in the whole post. 

yes that was the whole point of the email. That was a suggestion for
Marcelo.

> >  I only said I'm not applying to the licence and _you_ have to respect
> > my _right_ not to use the software and to advertize the _open_ links,
> > without seeing it as an offensive thing.
> 
>  (a) It wasn't all you said
>  (b) I can, and do, get offended by postings to public non-religious lists
>      that have no redeeming value except to push your religious views.
> 
> I despise people who come up to me in the street (or even worse - ring the
> doorbell on my house) to tell me about Jesus, and how they found happiness
> in him.
> 
> Good for you and your buddy Jesus/buddha/Moses/AlienFromAnotherPlanet. But
> get the _hell_ out of my face. If I come to your church to listen to your
> sermons, that's when I'll respect your right to tell me.  But if you stand
> up with a megaphone in the park when I'm having a picknick, I'd much
> rather kick your sorry ass the h*ll out of there.
> 
> So go to gnu.misc.discuss if you want to discuss the immorality of 

Really I don't find anything immoral, nor religious here. I only care
about law. Law says if I use bitkeeper I can't develop in the same area,
and so I refuse to use it. it's as simple as that.

To me it looks like you're confusing law and free market, with religion.

To make an example, I used netscape for years, netscape was the only
reasonable software at the time, and I would have never expected that
they would release the sources anytime soon, nor I was extremely
interested into it, since netscape just worked fine (on alpha I used the
tru64 version for a long time too). I preferred an open alternative but
there wasn't so I happily used netscape. I still used netscape for a
long time even when mozilla was usable because some website didn't work
with mozilla and I had no time to fix it myself. The netscape licence
was acceptable to me to use for something not critical for me like
browsing the web (I mean who cares if netscape crashes). I can make lots
more examples like that. I don't feel religious about stuff, and you
certainly can't claim I'm religious because I refuse to giveup my rights
to fix or improve cvs or subversion or to write a filesystem with
versioning, that may effectively collide with future jobs as well.
that's about freedom, not religion.

Andrea - If you prefer relying on open source software, check these links:
	    rsync.kernel.org::pub/scm/linux/kernel/bkcvs/linux-2.[45]/
	    http://www.cobite.com/cvsps/
	    svn://svn.kernel.org/linux-2.[46]/trunk




From: Linus Torvalds [email blocked]
Subject: Re: log-buf-len dynamic
Date: Tue, 23 Sep 2003 20:38:35 -0700 (PDT)

On Wed, 24 Sep 2003, Andrea Arcangeli wrote:
> 
> Really I don't find anything immoral, nor religious here. I only care
> about law. Law says if I use bitkeeper I can't develop in the same area,
> and so I refuse to use it. it's as simple as that.

Go away. I will tell you one more time: it is _fine_ that you don't use 
BK. Nobody has ever asked you to, in fact.

So don't use it. Please. You don't like the license, and what it means. 
Agreed. That license is a legal document. Agreed. BUT THAT ISN'T THE 
ISSUE.

And that was NEVER the issue, even though you keep bringing it up. Again
and again. 

The issue is that you should not complain about other peoples choices. 
They are not _your_ choices. Never were, and never will be.

		Linus

• Archive of earlier thread referenced in above thread
• Archive of above thread
• Earlier KernelTrap story about bitKeeper flame wars
• KernelTrap interview with Larry McVoy